Car Parking Costs in Winchester - TrustNews December 1985
(A letter from the Chief Executive of Winchester City Council)
In the April 1985 edition of the Trust's Newsletter the column by Michael Carden and Chris Gillham on the Area Plan suggested that the "true cost of parking provision is not covered by revenue". This statement on its own gives a false impression of the economics of car parking in Winchester. The car parking budget (of which a copy is attached) has to meet the costs of providing sites, erecting and/or laying out car parks, maintenance of land and buildings and all the general management and collection costs, even including a proportion of elected member time and the cost of democracy. The charges are then fixed in a way which is intended:-
- To encourage and discourage patterns of use from a traffic management point of view;
- To break even or make a small surplus over the whole account.
In virtually every recent year the account has shown a profit which has been used to subsidise rate funded services and is now being used to build up a car parking reserve fund.
It has been suggested in some quarters that the land on which car parks are built could have a higher value if used for other purposes and that such higher value should be used when calculating the costs of the car parking service. Virtually any other use of such land would generate more traff¬ic and greater need for parking and would additionally be in breach of the restraint planning policies of the City and therefore, without the knowledge of specific examples which do not breach policy, such an argument is unreliable.
It is, however, fair to say that issues such as the provision of car parking and the economics of transport are never black and white but normally involve a fine and continuing balance of judgement. The regular monitoring and review of policies and strategies for this service will continue, but, while that goes on, the books of the City Council must still be balanced as they are being at present.
I hope that these comments will help to clarify the situation.
David Cowan
The figures given below have been taken from the car parking budget attached to Mr. Cowan's letter.
1984/85 (probable)
Expenditure
Employees and other running expenses £324,000
Debt charges £191,000
Income
£596,000
Chris Gillham comments as follows:
Any commercial concern is expected, when called upon to do so, to reveal its assets and justify the returns on the investments made by its shareholders. Mr. Cowan appears to suggest that local authorities (in which we are all shareholders) should not be under the same obligation.
At the Inquiry into the Area Plan recently, the Trust, using some data kindly supplied by Mr. Cowan, did some very rough cal¬culations (which were not in fact challenged) and concluded that the total capital investment in the City's car parking could be conservatively estimated at - around £16 million. The return on investment, given by income less running expenses, is about £270,000 or 1.7% p.a. at best. Since that is much lower than the current interest rates on the safest investments, it is impossible to conclude that car parking is not heavily subsidised.
Mr. Cowan repeats an argument used at the recent Inquiry, that any other use for the land but car parking would generate more traffic. I cannot understand this argument. The amount of car traffic will depend on the number of car destinations available - if you remove car parking you remove traffic. The City Council continues to fall into the error of supposing that increased activity can only be obtained by increasing private motorised access.
Regardless of what the effects would be of removing car parking spaces, it must be proper to calculate what the costs of parking policy are, especially since the City insists on measuring alternative access policies on strict economic criteria.